Just A Substitute: The Wife He Failed

Ellie POV

I was walking laps in the corridor. Doctor's orders.

Every step sent a sharp, electric jolt through my grafting skin, but I forced my legs to piston forward. Pain was proof I was still alive.

I turned the corner near the elevator bank and stopped dead.

Chloe was there.

She wasn't in a hospital gown. She was draped in a cream cashmere sweater and designer jeans, looking like she had just stepped out of a Vogue editorial rather than a trauma ward.

She saw me, and her eyes widened.

"Ellie," she breathed. She took a tentative step toward me.

I turned around immediately. I didn't have the stomach for her. Not today.

"Wait!" she called out, her voice echoing off the sterile walls. "Please, just stop!"

I kept walking. My rubber-soled slippers scuffed rhythmically against the linoleum.

She caught up to me and grabbed my arm. My bad arm.

I gasped, a ragged sound, and pulled away instinctively. "Don't touch me."

"I just want to talk," she insisted, her grip tightening on the sensitive flesh. "Marcus... he's worried about you. We both are. This misunderstanding needs to stop."

"Misunderstanding?" I laughed. It was a dry, cracking sound that hurt my throat. "You call sleeping with my husband a misunderstanding?"

"We have a history, Ellie. You can't just erase that."

"I'm not trying to erase it," I rasped. "I'm trying to escape it."

I yanked my arm back. I put too much desperate force into the motion.

I lost my balance.

My foot caught on the raised edge of the carpet runner. I stumbled backward, my center of gravity gone.

The stairwell door had been propped open by a cleaning cart.

I fell.

For a second, I was weightless. Then, gravity took over. I hit the first step with my shoulder. Then my hip. I tumbled down, a chaotic mess of limbs and bandages.

"Ellie!" Chloe screamed.

She reached out. It was a reflex. She tried to grab the fabric of my shirt to anchor me.

But she was wearing stilettos. She slipped.

I landed at the bottom of the landing, bruised and breathless, the wind knocked out of me.

A split second later, Chloe came crashing down beside me.

Her head hit the concrete floor with a sickening, wet thud.

Silence.

Then, blood. Bright red, pooling rapidly under her blonde hair.

I tried to sit up. My body screamed in protest. "Chloe?"

She didn't move.

The door at the top of the stairs burst open, banging against the wall.

"Chloe!"

It was Marcus. He must have been parking the car.

He flew down the stairs, taking them three at a time. He didn't even look at me. He stepped right over my legs to get to her.

"Chloe, baby, wake up," he begged, his voice cracking. He touched her face. His hands came away bloody.

He looked up at me then.

His eyes were voids. There was no recognition, no husband looking at his wife. Only a pure, unadulterated rage.

"What did you do?" he hissed.

"I... she fell," I stammered, shock setting in. "I fell..."

"You did this," he said. His voice was low, vibrating with the effort not to strangle me. "If she doesn't wake up... I swear to God, Ellie, I will destroy you."

"Marcus, I'm hurt too," I whispered, the words barely audible.

He stood up, scooping Chloe into his arms. She was limp, dead weight against his chest.

"I don't care," he said.

He turned and ran up the stairs, shouting for help.

I lay on the cold concrete. My burned arm was throbbing in time with my heartbeat. My hip felt like it was on fire. I was alone in the stairwell, listening to the fading echoes of my husband saving the woman he actually loved.

I closed my eyes. Darkness pulled at me, heavy and welcome.

When I woke up again, I was back in my bed.

A nurse was checking my vitals. "You're lucky," she said briskly. "Just bruises. You're a tough one."

Tough. I hated that word. It was just a polite way of saying I was accustomed to suffering.

My phone on the bedside table buzzed. It was Marcus.

She has a concussion. They are monitoring her brain activity.

I didn't reply.

Did you push her? the next text read.

I stared at the screen, my vision blurring.

Tell me the truth, Ellie.

I typed back slowly, my fingers stiff.

I fell. She tried to catch me.

Three dots appeared. Then disappeared. Then appeared again.

I'm sorry, he finally wrote. I panicked. I'll come see you when she's stable.

I put the phone down.

He apologized because he realized I wasn't a murderer. Not because he had left me bleeding on the floor.

I looked at the calendar on the wall.

Five days left until the divorce papers could be finalized if I expedited the process.

I needed to survive five more days.

The door opened. Marcus walked in. He looked like he had aged ten years in two hours.

"She's awake," he said. He slumped into the chair next to my bed, the leather creaking. "She told me what happened. That she grabbed you."

"I told you that," I said flatly.

"I know. I'm sorry." He rubbed his face aggressively. "I just... seeing her like that. It brought back memories. Of when she was sick."

"The leukemia," I said.

He froze. His hand dropped from his face. "How do you know about that?"

"I hear things," I said. "About how you gave up Yale. About how you saved her."

He looked away, unable to meet my gaze. "That was a long time ago."

"But you never stopped saving her, did you?" I asked.

He didn't answer. He didn't have to.

I watched his fingers tap nervously on his knee.

"Go back to her," I said.

"I should stay," he said weakly. "You're my wife."

"Not for long," I whispered.

"What?"

"Nothing," I said, turning my head away. "Go. She needs you."

He stood up. Relief washed over his face, plain and undeniable.

"I'll be back later," he promised.

He wouldn't.

I watched him leave. He didn't look back.

I reached for the phone again. I dialed the lawyer.

"Is the paperwork ready?" I asked.

"Yes, Mrs. Sterling. Just need your signature."

"Bring it here," I said. "Tonight."